23 August 2009

Late Night with Daddy

It's the middle of the night. A few minutes ago, I was awakened by something that sounded like water spilling. My head slightly off the pillow, I waited. Then, a little gasp of breath from the next room, and I knew: a child was throwing up.

One day before school starts, and we've got a barfer. Fantastic.

Thinking with fear of the waves of vomit that could be headed our way as some nasty virus makes its way through five children, and thinking hopefully that this turn-of-stomach resulted from too much junk food at the soccer game last night or from start-of-school nerves rather than from physical illness, I mused to Rick:

"If a kid gets sick from nerves or junk food, can the other kids catch it?"

Rick: "Only if they reach down and cup their hands."

The true measure of parenting is whether or not you can make a joke in hell. That man is golden.

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